Parash Pathar

Parash Pathar ( Porosh Pathor; English: The Philosopher's Stone; French: La Pierre Philosophale) is a 1958 Bengali language Indian fantasy comedy film. It was Satyajit Ray's first film outside of The Apu Trilogy. It was also his first comedy and first magical realist film. Adapted from a short story of the same name by Parasuram (Rajsekhar Basu), the film offered an early glimpse of Ray's sense of humour, centered on a middle-class clerk who accidentally discovers a stone that can turn other objects into gold. Plot Paresh Chandra Dutt (Tulsi Chakrabarti), a middle-class bank clerk in Kolkata, attends a charity match on a rainy day rather reluctantly. At Curzon Park (modern-day Surendranath Park), where the match is apparently to be held, he finds a small, round stone. Thinking it is a marble, he gives it to his nephew. The child discovers that it turns metal into gold (i.e. the philosopher's stone). Dutt "buys" the stone from the child with sweets after witnessing the stone's power himself. He decides to take a few old cannonballs from the city dump, turn them into gold, and sell them. This scheme makes him rich; as a chauffeur drives him home from the dump, the car pulls into the driveway of a mansion (his new home). He now has a young secretary named Priyatosh Henry Biswas (Kali Banerjee) who, among other things, mentions that Dutt is invited to a cocktail party (his first). At the party, Dutt acts slightly unnatural before engaging in drunken revelry. When another guest orders him to get out, he turns an iron figurine into gold (thus partially revealing how he became successful). It is not long before this incident is posted as a headline in the papers, causing a panic in Bengal. Paresh Dutt flees with his wife, Giribala (Ranibala Devi), leaving nearly everything (including the stone) with Priyatosh but cautioning him to hand it over if the police arrive.